


Professing Pragmatics

by EmuSam



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Endearments, Gen, Gratuitous Conversation, Humor, Insults, JARVIS is not PowerPoint, Nicknames, Snark, crime and punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 10:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3323900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmuSam/pseuds/EmuSam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony teaches Loki the finer points of nicknames. Turnabout is fair play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professing Pragmatics

**Author's Note:**

> Pragmatics: the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used, including such matters as deixis, taking turns in conversation, text organization, presupposition, and implicature.

“Really, Stark?” Loki demanded blandly, eyeing the hovering text over the top of his book. “A PowerPoint presentation?”

“Pfft, PowerPoint, as if I would touch Microsoft for anything but humorous social deconstruction. No, this is a reactive, interactive, hyperactive illustration of everything I say as I say it. I’m not reading the slides; the slides are reading me.”

“And yet they remain slides.”

Tony huffed in annoyance. “Yes, surprisingly, unmoving images with moderate captions are still a viable communication strategy in today’s high-tech era. They remain slides. Not only that, I will probably slide some of them around. To answer your question — assuming you actually want an answer, Bridgekeeper.…”

“No, Stark, I want you to go away. Failing that, yes, I want an explanation of these ridiculous terms for all and sundry who have the misfortune of crossing your path.”

Tony tried to wait a minute for Jarvis to play a movie clip over his head, then spoke over it instead. “ _Bridgekeeper_ was Monty Python, source of all things unexpected up to and including the Spanish Inquisition, but now so well known that no one is surprised any more — kind of like the Spanish Inquisition, huh, how about that, I’ll show you that clip later —and the lack of surprise kind of negates the original surreal comedy; yet the Flying Circus is wrapped around pop culture like an octopus. Bridgekeeper fulfills multiple reference factors in this conversation, including asking questions; referencing bridges and therefore the Bifrost, which applies to all you Norse gods these days, even if it would be better for Heimdall; and throwing people off of high places.” Tony restlessly called up more slides to demonstrate every other word.

Loki waved away a few holographic pics that were too close. “If you do not get to the point, Stark, I will reintroduce you to the joys of theodefenestration.”

“Fancy two extra syllables, there, your Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, and that was the point, from which I only deviated once, and that was relatively briefly for me. You may have noticed. The _point_ — well, points — well, bullet points, throw these up on a slide, JARVIS — are, one: knowing your subject; b: knowing your culture; and eye-eye-eye: creating a network of references between them. In other words, I’m pigeonholing you all every time I speak with you, and I’m getting away with it because I’m doing it so quickly and I have so many holes. But with love. Or hate. It’s a love-hate relationship with people and the world. There’s also the little benefit that I remember everything because it’s part of that network, and it helps me make huge intuitive leaps, which I would do anyway because I’m that awesome, but it helps. Go on, give it a try. Hit me.”

“You are fortunate, Stark, that I am not yet inclined to interpret that literally.”

“Lack of literalness also helps. Make another bullet point, J. Come on, Grasshopper, I said it was going to be an interactive tutorial. Nickname me.”

Loki eyed Tony haughtily, then ventured, “Pathetic worm.”

“No, work with me here, Buttercup — and I’m not explaining that one. That was horrible. That was cliche and predictable and trite and I am embarrassed to be associated with it, and not the good embarrassed, I’m embarrassed on your behalf. Make me embarrassed on my own behalf. Try again.”

Loki glanced back down at his book.

> “I want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these trifles,” he thought, with an odd smile. “Hm … yes, all is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.… But I am talking too much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter that I do nothing. I’ve learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my den thinking … of Jack the Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at all. It’s simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.”

 “Stop bobbing about like a Jack-in-the-box, mortal weakling.”

Tony laughed. “Better, better, but you’re relying too much on the obvious insult. If you want to sucker punch me where I live, you want me to embrace the nickname, and then get hit by the fridge logic a second later. Say it with more affection, and let the poison run deep. I know you can do this, Silvertongue.”

Loki kept his expression carefully hooded and turned a page as if nothing the mortal said were of any consequence. “‘Silvertongue’ makes sense. It has naught to do with your culture.”

“Course it does! I know it, therefore it’s my culture. Q.E.D. Don’t try too hard - make it look easy.”

Loki raised his book slightly. “Why do you not call me Raskolnikov? That is your native culture, is it not?”

Tony blinked at the book. “Well, it’s Natasha’s native culture.”

“Do not play me for a fool. You are all Midgardians.”

“Yeah, see, Rand McNally, seven billion people on the planet. Some of us have different tastes. When separated by twelve thousand miles and an inability to teleport, you get weird little sociological artifacts like, say, Russians and Americans having a different culture. There’s a lot of cross-cultural contamination, though. That means we steal shamelessly from each other.

“Trust Professor Stark, grasshopper. Cricket. Locust, that’s good with the whole world-conquering thing. Once you’ve shown some improvement, then we’ll get into insults versus endearments. That’s where it becomes weaponized.” Tony’s smile turned a little more vicious.

“The leader of the free world could and did do this with an IQ of 80 for a staff of hundreds. It’s a power trip. I’m giving you a pass on pop culture because I know you come from a horribly backwards planet without Smurfs or AC/DC.”

“What are those, Stark?” Loki sighed.

“Blue Belgian dwarves and heavy metal pioneers.”

Loki took a moment to refuse to act baffled. “Thank you. I am familiar with the concept of the epithet, but I inquired about your particular reference for antonomasia. Please continue in this vein instead of your former trend. I suspect you of displaying signs of triviality.”

“Hah! Yes, it would be horrible to find out I was in earnest, wouldn’t it? Make a note, Archimedes, this is world conquering on an Ouroborean scale here. I’m giving you all my best secrets, except the technology, only because you asked.

“And do you want to know the best of it?

“The second best of it is the person who wants to use it against you. Who takes a diminutive, and instead of using it with love, uses it to make you feel smaller. And you take that, you take his power from him and you turn it back on him, cause you’re smarter than he is and you can talk rings around him, you can crush him with a word.

“And the best is - well, that’s the advanced lesson. Ask me again later. What do you think?”

**Author's Note:**

> I was having trouble figuring out how nicknames worked, so I thought I’d ask Tony to explain it to me.
> 
> Thanks to the millions of editors of TV Tropes because Tony knows way more about modern American culture than I do. Warning: TV Tropes will ruin your life.
> 
> Comments are the cinnamon and sugar on my bread and butter.


End file.
